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Red Bull Is Not GoPro's Knight in Shining Armor

One analyst calls this GoPro's "Jump the Shark" moment, predicting it's all downhill from here.

Shares of GoPro Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRO) popped recently after news of the company's partnership with Red Bull.

In some ways it's the perfect deal for the struggling camera brand. Red Bull has tied itself to extreme sports, and GoPro, of course, markets to that world. Still, even though this is big news for the technology stock, this agreement on its own is only a small piece of the puzzle. It will do good things for the camera brand, but the company needs a lot more before shareholders can consider it back on the right track.

In this clip from the Motley Fool Money radio show, Chris Hill, Jeff Fischer, and Ron Gross explain why the deal isn't at all as exciting as it might initially seem, and why GoPro is still an incredibly troubled company.

A transcript follows the video.

This podcast was recorded on May 27, 2016.

Chris Hill: GoPro, the company behind the video cameras popular with fans of extreme sports, struck a partnership this week with Red Bull, the energy-drink company. I wish I was making this up. It must be a great deal, Jeff, because shares of GoPro are up more than 10% this week.

Jeff Fischer: Well, GoPro needed a little bit of help. But they need a lot more than this. It doesn't look like they're on deck to earn profits, earnings per share, until at least 2018, and that estimate is --

Ron Gross: And that's important why?

Fischer: [laughs] That's a small estimate, and it's speculative as it is. GoPro is worth $1.4 billion right now, market value, which, by itself, is a great success for a company that's 12 years old. The problem is, that stock was 8 times higher just in the past couple of years. It's had a really rough ride, down some 90%. Their sales, of course, are down sharply. Their margins are down right along with that into losses. It's hard to see what's going to propel the business back to the heights it hit in 2013, even 2014. Some people hope it'll be drones, which come out this holiday season. But I think drones, just like the GoPro camera itself, is not a mass-market product.

Gross: Can someone explain to me what the deal with Red Bull actually is? Is it just a marketing deal?

Fischer: I guess there is that news, too, before I just pile on GoPro ... GoPro is going to be the only and the official camera of any Red Bull event. Red Bull has some 1,800 events around more than 100 countries across the planet each year. That increases the visibility of GoPro at any Red Bull event. That said, they've had a partnership for a long time. That's why I haven't talked about it much so far. I don't see much leverage from the formality of this partnership, because they've had an informal partnership for a long time.

Gross: I'm calling it the "Jump the Shark" moment. It's downhill from here.